Spring Break

A White Lipped Tree Frog

A Warning Sign on the train

Since I'm in Australia where it has been "winter" while my friends back home were having summer, I get to have a spring break, which was this week. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, all of my plans seemed to fall through, but then my brother decided to come visit me so we went off on a crazy adventure! I showed him around Cairns including the Botanical Gardens where we found a white lipped tree frog and some very strange looking spiders. We went to Rusty's Market and then had a barbecue. We ate ridiculous quantities of gelato because it is delicious! My roommate's birthday was this week so we went out to dinner to celebrate it.

On Sunday we decided to check out the oft mentioned Kuranda Scenic Railway and Sky Rail. The railway was built completely by hand in the late 1800s and has several tunnels. All in all, it must have been a lot of work. From the train you can see the Barron Falls. Unfortunately it is still the dry season here so there was relatively little water going over the falls, it's supposed to be incredible at full flow. The train goes up to Kuranda "the village in the rainforest." Unfortunately it's become a bit of a tourist trap. We went back down on the Sky Rail so we could see over the rainforest. It was definitely more scenic than the train.

The Sky Rail

Monday we went out to Fitzroy Island and sea kayaked. That was a lot of fun. It was possible to see coral below as we paddled and occasionally small (supposedly non-stinging) jellyfish. We paddled out to the small neighbouring island of Little Fitzroy. Readers of my blog will remember that there is a lighthouse on Fitzroy Island that is no longer in use; Now there is a beacon on Little Fitzroy that replaced it. We climbed up to the beacon, quite the adventure! There isn't a clearly defined path but getting there requires a fair bit of climbing over giant rocks and pulling yourself up by grabbing onto branches and bushes. Getting down requires repelling with a rope down a rock face and then climbing down a rusting metal ladder. Still, it was quite the view and I actually kind of enjoyed getting a chance to climb around. In the afternoon my brother and I went snorkeling in the shallows near the island. Unfortunately the water was not very clear that day so we didn't see much. It was quite sunny and not very windy, a great day to go kayaking!

Millaa Millaa Falls

Paronella Park

The next day we did a waterfall tour. We started off by going to Lake Barrine where we had tea and scones and took a boat tour around the lake. There were a ton of ducks following the boat because the driver always throws some bread to them. After that we went to Millaa Millaa Falls, which has apparently been used in a few movies but I couldn't find a list of them anywhere. Next we went to the Curtain Fig Tree. We had lunch at Mungali Falls. In the afternoon we went to Paronella Park, a place that I had never heard of but greatly enjoyed. This guy, Jose Paronella bought a chunk of land because it has a beautiful waterfall and then built a castle by hand from simple materials. All of the structures are arranged in such a way that they give a view of the waterfall. He built the whole thing by hand by himself. It's really quite incredible. In addition to having a waterfall and castle, the park has some cool animals around. The small lake has dozens of turtles and an eel in addition to many fish. In one section there were dozens of Spectacle Flying Foxes ( a very large fruit bat which is endangered but that I've enjoyed seeing a lot of around Cairns) sleeping in trees. There is a tunnel in the park where Paronella had dug up clay for his constructions which has a few hundred microbats living in it. They're quite cute. I really liked it there and am glad that I rather inadvertently ended up there.

On Wednesday we did what everyone who goes to Cairns should do, we went out to the Great Barrier Reef. This time I tried scuba diving; I'm not very good at equalizing. Still we saw lots of fish which came over to check us out. We went snorkeling and saw a sea turtle! I used up all the pictures on my disposable waterproof camera and I'm hoping that the sea turtle picture comes out well. It was quite exciting! Also, this time I managed to not get sunburned, yay! I also didn't get stung by any coral, I was quite careful! I saw some absolutely beautiful giant clams with very vivid colors, some large Wrasse, lots of colorful parrotfish, and several angelfish. All in all, a great day out at the reef!





Yesterday was my brother's last day here so we had a more mellow day and explored Cairns a bit further. We walked around on the Esplanade and climbed around on the bouldering place. I think that Cairns would be a great place to be a kid, there's a great swimming pool (the Lagoon), a giant playground, a skatepark, and a bouldering place all on the Esplanade. After one last day of fun I had to say goodbye to my brother. He should be on a plane on the way back home right now.